Evergreen International Aviation's former general counsel is suing the McMinnville company and its chairman, Timothy Wahlberg, alleging that the company discriminated against her because she is a woman. She also charges Evergreen with violating multiple employment laws, including the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

Monique DeSpain is a lieutenant colonel and staff Judge Advocate for the Oregon Air National Guard's 142nd Fighter Wing. In her complaint filed in U.S. District Court, DeSpain said Evergreen hired her as general counsel in January 2011 and fired her in July that year. In between, her complaint charges, company executives objected to her "forthright and assertive work style," and clashed with her about her schedule and her activities as general counsel. Wahlberg expected her to be "deferential, compromising, affirming and quiet," according to the complaint.

The complaint also alleges that Evergreen's Human Resources Director, Dan Klump, raised objections about DeSpain's military commitments, which included working at the Portland Airbase on Fridays before monthly drill weekends. Three days after a discussion about her military obligations for the coming year, and following an argument about whether she should have been paid for a vacation week in June, she was fired, the complaint says. She said her termination was "devastating" and damaged her reputation.

In its response, Evergreen denied the charges, calling her work "insufficient, inconsistent with the representations (she) made at the time she was hired and that she lacked the skills she represented herself as having." And the company said she was "impolite, demanding and behaved inappropriately" in her conversations with Wahlberg.

DeSpain seeks economic and punitive damages as well as attorney's fees. Evergreen seeks to have the case dismissed and seeks attorney's fees. A trial date has not yet been set.